that is so ridiculous, most of us use other kinds of baselines. we use a current policy baseline, which extends all of these tax laws. more recently, everybody seems to be able to choose their own base line. [laughter] the president has his own. bowles-simpson, as much as i admire what they did, they had a rather odd baseline, to, which assumes we did not continue tax cuts for the rich. no wonder the public is totally baffled by all of this. britishlook at the austerity program. compare it to what would happen if you continued. it is quite a bit less generous in that. whereas we, when we talk about reforming social security, talk about cuts and benefits, when all we are doing is slowing the growth. if you look at the bowles- simpson proposal, the benefits for everybody continues to increase over time, not as much as for the lower income. we are so confused, it is surprising they have the vaguest notion of what is going on. >> you see this reflected if you just look at simple polls. it is confusing. you hear tax cuts. we are not talking about tax c